A Piece of Something: Fiction

It is the summer of 1994 and I am 5. We live in California. Sunshine drips from the sky, soaking through my porcelain skin, drenching it with color. I am running through cool sprinklers, then I am alone in the rose garden. My grandfather planted eighty-five bushes in honor of my grandmother—the one he beat to death. At dusk, I like to wander in and around the blooming plants in search of fairies. I never find any. When I am twelve, I realize that nothing is magical. I begin to plan my future. My father loses his job, our minivan is repossessed, my mother begins working at Wal-Mart, and my brother is regularly harassed by a neighborhood bully. Fights and boys and bad ideas seem to flock toward me. I am vindictive, cruel, beautiful.

~

Here, in this city. Now, in 2010.

Nothing is real. Yet, people have you believe that they tell the truth. They want you to love them, to love the autumn sky, to sing and drink and sink to the lowest depths. They want you to be on their level. I try. I tried. I am trying. I tell Finn.

I tell him, "I don't believe you."

~

Sometimes, I think the world is flat. Not the whole world, just my little piece. When I seal that envelope with the payment for my college loans inside, I think I am falling. Then I remember the world is round, and everything begins again. It doesn't have to be money—though that slips through my fingers like hot sand. Other times, the sensation is induced by the squealing of squad cars moving rapidly up the cobble stone, or the feeling of cold porcelain against my skin after a rough night. I am always falling.